How to Deal With Politics At Work

We are often frustrated by stupid politics in the workplace. Do you feel like people are backstabbing you and making up all kinds of stories to hurt your reputation? Are the people you work with frustrating the hell out of you? Let master career coach, Unre Visagie guide you through dealing with this unpleasant situation in this coaching video…

Slide 1 (People around here frustrate me)

Careerdevelopmentplan.net offers the foolproof Career Maker System. Today we specifically talk about how people in my workplace and other places could frustrate me from time to time. In our businesses over the years, coaching, pro bono work at schools and universities, we have found that sometimes people do grind against each other and frustrate each other. How do you use this frustration to your benefit and influence your career decisions positively?

We believe turning frustration into career growth can be an exciting experience. People making career changes using the Career Maker System often got 30% and more increases within 18 months. They took the energy that’s gone into nurturing the frustration and they turned it around to work for them with less effort and a lot more fun. It creates a secure, safe and certain way to change towards your ideal career, and ensure that you earn what you want and what you deserve in the company, the job, the industry of your choice in midlife or after. We hope you enjoy the process and the details we offer you on the website.

Slide 2 (We all work, invest and benefit together)

People often have the awareness that people have is of they, others, that frustrate me. It creates a feeling that the others must change before I can be ok. In this model we turn it around; we let you use the opportunities where you work with others, even in frustration. So you can communicate what you do what you understand, your value, and you then move towards more valuable work for the company and for you. You will see how you grow, by getting rid of the frustrations and turning it into your benefit.

The solution for turning frustration into benefit: know what you currently do for whom, what you are committed to do, what’s part of your job to do and what you can expand to do, there’s a whole lot of opportunities. Prepare this communication with people around you, people you can trust and with whom you are comfortable. With your prepared communication engage anybody where you can deliver value, and especially those that in the past used to frustrate you in your interactions.

Slide 3 (Why would your employer want you to earn more)

Why would your employer be very keen for you to do this and pay you more? Yes, they do want to pay you more, but only if you do much more. That’s the way we’ve all earned more in our lives. In any business there’s shareholders that wants more returns, and if they get more, we get more capital to play with, it’s very simple. It’s easier for the board and the executive management to manage if we make an input strategically, if we add value, they can do more, and we all grow faster.

You personally grow faster, if you have an interest in the business and the industry, an interest in your teams, an interest to contribute, you will really make a big difference and be a cogwheel in the big engine of business that drives the whole thing. When one is frustrated, you so often slow down the whole machine, and then they are obviously going to pay you less. If you speed up the whole machine they are going to pay you more. How do you do that? Understand your role, understand where you fit, find the best fit for you and always keep the client in mind. At the end of the day, the people we deliver the service to finally must come shopping. They pay for what they buy from us. If we can produce better at a lower cost, it works for management, it works for the shareholders, and it obviously then works for us. It’s very important to understand your role as a cogwheel in the big business so we can all grow. There’s much more on this on the website.

We find that many people just look for a job and in a job you get easily frustrated, whereas if you go to work for the company, you go to produce, you go to add value to clients, stakeholders, everywhere around you, everybody loves you and the frustration often just vanish and you will get that fantastic increase, as I hope you will get. The challenge then is to move from the perceived boxes where they frustrate me, where the company decides etc. It’s like a glass plate, you can see on the other side but you can’t touch it. We want to break that glass plate, to think outside the box and move to the great space, where your earnings grow and you get the job you really want and build the career you really want.

Slide 4 (Know what you currently do for whom)

When we all work, invest and benefit together we don’t need permission to do that. We can simply go and do it following these techniques: know what you currently do for whom. On the website I give you a note to show you the value of what you do, the understanding, the insight, you discuss it with people close to you and you ask what more can I do, what else can I do? What must I delegate, what must I do less of? Jack Welsh from GE said NO is the most profitable word in business. NO is also the most profitable word in your career and your job, provided you know what you do, people around you know what you do, you can easily say no and choose what else to do to grow yourself.

Slide 5 (Prepare to communicate to influencers)

From thinking outside the box to the great space, the second step is to prepare to communicate with the people you want to work with, that you need to work with. People must know what you do so they can pay you properly, they can’t pay you properly if they don’t know, so you must prepare so you can communicate. You can’t go and ask them, you have to go to them with solutions, you must have already tested it and be prepared, have your story prepared. You will see elsewhere on the website there’s much more on stories. Your story must be clear.

Here are some selected notes to get you going. Discuss with selected friends, family and colleagues. Prepare and get more information, do some research; ask people who do a similar job in another company, etc. Join associations; join magazines en ezines etc. In this way you become part of the company and part of the industry. Practice those communications so you are prepared for the third step.

Slide 6 (Engage and communicate your work list)

Now you engage the people that can make a difference around you, people that you can delegate to, people that you can get work from and people that need to know to pay you properly. In this process frustrations just go away because you are a task-driven person, you are clear, and when somebody frustrates you, you can simply ask them: “What are we achieving here?” “Let’s rather go for the results so we can earn more money.” You ask and you share, you need good questioning skills that you can find on the website. Respect and acknowledgement will get you a long way. If you go to people around you, below, next to you or above you, you find something you can say to: “Wow, this is great!” They immediately feel bigger. They will immediately want to be with you and frustrations just disappear.

Slide 7 (FEAR & FAIL & RISK)

Let’s look at moving from where people frustrate you to turning that energy into great production, instead of turning it into a negative situation. We all fear, and fear just stands for False Evidence Appearing Real. Fail stands for First Attempt in Learning. If you look back at your life, you learnt to walk and talk, you learnt to tie your shoes, you learnt to ride a bicycle; anything included some failure and some skin. But we got back on the bicycle, it wasn’t a big deal, but when it gets to people, we are scared what they will think. This process will let you practice so you recognize the false evidence and it goes away, the fear of failure goes away, and you start moving forward. The process, to remind you: know what you do, prepare and engage.

You have a fantastic store of assets, everybody has. People have experiences, expertise, interests, aptitudes and relationships that they never articulate, they never unpack it. Talk to people around you, they can see what you can’t see yourself. During my life when I was building businesses, recruiting people, coaching people and doing pro bono work in schools, I haven’t even found a professor that can do his own list. Talk to others around you, if you experience difficulties, come to the website and ask us questions, we can help you. You will see that the resources, whatever resources you may need, are already out there. Your challenge is to bring those resources inside as you climb up the staircase and make your own staircase. Climbing and making a staircase at the same time could be challenging, that is why we have created this safe process from our experience over the years with our friends and professors.

To start: explore and identify. Prepare, engage, and in the process you grow and clarify your store, and you are clearer on what you say yes and no to. Remember no is the most profitable word ever. In this process you are guided to align the job, company and industry that you want to work in. You want to play in the middle, growing your job and growing your company as part of a growth industry. Secondly, you want to make sure that your job aligns with the work you want to do and the work with the job and both of those helps you grow your career long term. You focus in the middle with your asset list and grow. You end up being completely in charge of your future. You don’t have to ask, because you already know what others think and value. Your career aims are aligned with your work, job, company and industry. This insight and knowledge gives you confidence and it puts you in absolute charge.

Slide 8 (Start with the purpose)

We follow a process that let you clarify your purpose in your career. From purpose you can go to objectives and tasks, and dynamically align with your mission and vision. This is a very dynamic change, industry change, company change, your needs change, especially in midlife when you get impatient quicker, you don’t suffer fools so easily anymore. In that process, the more clarity you have, the more people want to be around you. It’s a lot of fun when there is clarity in communication around you.

Slide 9 (Earn more now thinking discussion)

Another model you will learn about in the process is to clearly understand the company’s rules, every way, strategy, focus, clients, what excites them etc. The rules are known and they can’t be changed easily, obey the rules while you work to change them. This is the space you want to spend more time in, provided you don’t waste time on being frustrated about the rules, because often that causes the frustration. Understand and accept the rules, then you can play in understanding and testing for outcomes: the best outcomes for you, the best outcomes for all the stakeholders as we have mentioned in the business model and especially the best outcome for the client.

When you focus on the client nobody can differ from you, because he’s the client, he comes shopping, he’s the only one that pays. You are also going to move in an area where it’s unknown to you but you have influence, then you go and explore. That is why you get more information, talk to more people. This is what all these models help you grow in inter and intra, with clear aims for the next phase of your career after midlife. It is so easy to not do this and get stuck in midlife with growing frustrations. Remember we want to turn frustrations into benefits.

Slide 10 (Approach people for input and advice. You gain awareness)

Approach people for input and advice and you will gain awareness. A brief review, how would you do this? Your approach should be: I admire something about you. There’s always something you can find, just look past the very frustrating interface, you will find something nice, even if you just thank him for frustrating you in the extreme. We had cases like that, where Nadine was very angry at some people, she thanked them for the opportunity to grow with them, they then turned around and gave her such valuable stuff that her salary increased over 20% in six months. They pointed out what she does that is valuable that she didn’t even know. Communicating that to the right people resulted in her getting a tremendous increase six months later. Recently, during a time when the company gave no increases, they realized they had to compete for her in the industry and she still got her increase.

Turning frustrations into benefits work, if you want to see Nadine’s story, it is on our sister website: ebio. You can just click on Nadine. You have to have serious questioning skills where you ask what else? What more? So you can explore. Your questions can be specific or your questions can be what do you think? There are closed questions and open questions. It’s all on the website and it’s all easy to use. Who else can you recommend I talk to? It’s amazing who people will introduce you to if you just ask. That is an easy way to turn your frustrations into benefits. Closed questions have to be specific. Exploratory questions consist of what else, who else, where else and so forth. There is much more about that on the website. Some of the processes on the web fit exactly what we have given you here. Look at the model SMARTM: Specific, Measurable, Accountable, Reward and Resource, Timing, Monitor, how do you do this? In any work environment all this can be obtained by giving other people benefit or opting them to help you. The processes are on the website.

Careerdevelopmentplan.net website

Let’s look at Planning and Performance. All of the resources are listed here that help you with goal setting, planning and communicating. It is grouped into an easy source for you to navigate.

Resource website

The resource website has a whole lot more resources. There are career success processes, understanding, business processes, career change, development plan; all of these are applicable to midlife career growth and change. A whole number of them, like the interpersonal skills, can turn frustrations into big benefits.

Slide 11 (Supporting the foolproof Career Maker System)

We have the business tool-set and the personal tool set that you’ve just seen on the website. Watch out for your next Career Maker System email!

About Unre VisagieI am a master coach with 30 years of career and business coaching experience. I have built and sold many of my own multi-million dollar companies. I have always built my companies based on the principle of successful people make a successful company. I invest in people. As your coach you get 30 years of experience to help you do the work you love and earn the salary you want.

What others are saying:

Llewelyn VenterCurrent Professional Coaching Student

"Roughly 3 weeks ago I was in a terrible place. I was frustrated, full of fear, had run out of options, and felt I had nowhere
left to go - a really BAD space. Unre, within 6 hours, kickstarted a process of turning this completely around - through what
I like to think of as an "intervention" of sorts - solid situation coaching and making me aware of options I didn't even know
existed. 3 weeks on, and my life has literally taken a 180-degree turn for the better, I feel relaxed, in control of my life again,
confident and full of positive energy. The journey has just begun - here's to my coach, mentor and councillor - thanks Unre!"Click here to view my Linked-In Profile...